Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister representing the Prime Minister (Senator Cormann) and the Minister representing the Minister for Government Services (Senator Ruston) to the questions without notice asked by Senators Keneally, Kitching and Wong today.

We have seen the parlous state of this government's morals on display today and ever since this scandalous robodebt was put in place back in 2016. There has been no regret or apology from the government about this issue until today, and there is still none from the finance minister, or from Senator Ruston, who has had to oversee this program. Every inch of the way in this place, time and time again, this government came in and tried to justify income averaging of ATO data and comparing that to the details that people properly reported to Centrelink as a justifiable way of issuing and raising debt notices.

Hundreds of thousands of these debt notices have been sent, and I, like many others—and I'm sure it happened to those opposite as well—have had people in tears calling our offices about these debt notices. People have been demonstrating profound mental health impacts because of these debt notices. And what did I hear back from the government? 'Well, if you don't owe a debt, you've got nothing to worry about.' But that was far from the case. The onus of proving you didn't owe a debt was on you. That is a breach of any debt policy and any debt law around this country. Debt collectors aren't supposed to be able to come after you unless they've got legitimate proof that a debt is owed.

This government had no legitimate proof that these debts were owed. Why? It is because they calculated these debts on a completely spurious basis. Senator Cormann said, 'Oh, well, the opposition, when in government, used to use ATO information to issue debt notices.' And, indeed, we did. But we had a pair of eyes—human engagement—to work out whether the debt was valid or not and whether it had been properly calculated. Even then, people had a proper process where they could have explained to them how their debt was calculated.

I have sat on the phone with Centrelink officials, asking them, 'How did you calculate this person's debt?' and they have refused to say how they had done it. They simply refused to say how they had calculated someone's debt. They refused to say, 'Actually, what we've done here is average out how much they earned in that financial year and used it to calculate whether we think, by averaging that out, they would have been eligible for income support over that time.'

The simple fact is that someone is entirely entitled to income support. Say, for example, that in the first half of the year you're working from July to October, that you have a reasonably well-paid job, and that then you lose your job. Maybe you get a little bit of casual work after that. Then, for the rest of the financial year, you're on income support. Centrelink took that money which you earned in the first half of the financial year, averaged it out and then said, 'We think you might have been claiming payments and we think you've got a debt.' No, it wasn't that they thought you'd been claiming payments; they said: 'Here is your debt notice. Here is the notice that says that you owe us money because you claimed payments from us improperly. And, if you think otherwise, please bring us your payslips and your bank statements and prove it to us that you don't owe the government money.'

This is spurious and outrageous, and it is absolutely incredible to me that it has taken until 2020, when this bad behaviour started back in 2016, for this government to be properly called out on it. And it took the courts to do it, not the blatant unfairness, not the complete lack of morals and not the mental health impacts of this policy on people. No! We had to have the issue go to court. (Time expired)

Amanda Stoker (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That was a wonderful exercise in rewriting history. It's near enough to fantasy, because as we try to paint recipients of the assistance of the Australian taxpayer in their time of need as victims we forget something really important: that is, that assistance from the taxpayer comes with a set of obligations. When someone makes an application for income support—let's say it's for any kind of income support payment, really—they're told two really important things. One is that they've got to report their income and that they have to do it every fortnight.

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And they did! They—

Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Pratt!

Amanda Stoker (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And they're told that if their circumstances change that they need to let Centrelink know.

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And they did.

Amanda Stoker (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And they're told that, if they fail to do so and they end up overpaid, a debt will be raised.

The people who have received these notices weren't just sent a debt collector to go and knock on the door. Yes, there was a computerised exercise of matching ATO records to what people had reported by way of income, an observation by that process that they didn't match and, in doing so, a process of averaging through the year was used. It turns out that wasn't the world's most accurate process. But it remains the case that the income support recipient has the obligation to accurately report their income. If they're doing that, they're not going to end up with a problem. If they get a notice through this data-matching process, as occurred in this case, it asks them to provide evidence of their income. If they engage with that process, as is their obligation, then they're not going to end up with a debt; there's going to be an accurate assessment of these things.

But, if we're talking about people who stick their heads in the sand—people who refuse to engage with their obligation to provide information to Centrelink so that the taxpayer can support those people in the measure reflected by law—then there's going to be a problem. Obligation is a two-way street; those who receive support from the Commonwealth have to do their best to make sure that accurate information is reported, just as the Commonwealth has to do its best to make sure we're assessing these things accurately.

I won't have Senator Pratt stand up here and take note of the answers to questions today and pretend that there is some moral objection from the Labor side to the use of a computer based measure to match the income reporting data with employment data for Centrelink recipients, because that is false. I can direct those opposite to so many examples from their own ministers when they were in government in which they expressed support for precisely the same thing. Let me direct Senator Pratt to a few examples. Mr Shorten said:

The automation of this process will free up resources and result in more people being referred to the tax garnishee process, retrieving more outstanding debt on behalf of taxpayers.

Mr Shorten didn't have a massive problem with the idea that we should recover debts using a computer based matching program. How about Mr Bowen? Mr Bowen had some things to say about this. When he had responsibility for this area, he said:

It is important that the Government explores different means of debt recovery to ensure that those who have received more money than they are entitled to repay their debt.

So Mr Bowen is okay with being responsible on this front. Mr Bowen is okay with people being required to repay excess benefits that they receive from the taxpayer because income hasn't been properly reported. And what about Ms Plibersek? She said:

… if people fail to come to an arrangement to settle their debts, the Government has a responsibility to taxpayers to recover that money.

Again, it's an uncontroversial concept. But those opposite seem to forget that that is exactly what they argued for in government. We're not ashamed to say that we're going to do the right thing by the Australian taxpayer. We're going to make sure we support those in need, but we're also going to make sure that those who are overpaid repay their debts. All the bleating in the world doesn't change that responsibility. (Time expired)

Malarndirri McCarthy (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Two points seem to have come through in Senator Stoker's five minutes regarding obligations: what were the government's obligations, and what are the government's obligations in dealing with this matter immediately? They have their heads in the sand. I would suggest that perhaps those opposite need to have a good look at what that actually means. It seems the inability to say sorry and to mean it runs deep in the coalition's DNA. We've heard, and we continue to hear, heartbreaking evidence about the impact of the government's damaging and, as it turns out, illegal scheme. So why not apologise to the people for imposing this terrible scheme on them?

We've heard evidence that it has cost some people their livelihoods, homes, families, peace of mind and even their lives. It is shameful. It's unconscionable that not a single person in the government's ranks can say the word 'sorry'. You cannot admit you were wrong to hound the families of deceased people demanding payment. You cannot admit you were wrong to inflict a bureaucratic nightmare on people and try and force them into repaying money they didn't have for debts they did not incur.

The government expected people in trauma to answer questions about circumstances from years ago and threatened them with debt recovery—action, straightaway, if they didn't answer immediately. Yet this government, the minister and the Prime Minister will not even answer the most basic questions about how this illegal robodebt scheme was designed and implemented. The minister has dodged and ducked, thrown up flimsy claims of public interest immunity and just plain refused to answer questions about robodebt. Have a look at the transcripts of Senate estimates of the many times we have tried to pursue this line of questioning. Have a look at the transcripts of our community affairs inquiries and you will see that this line of questioning is never answered.

The Prime Minister does need to step up and answer the questions about how robodebt came into being and when the government was first made aware that what they were doing was illegal. The Prime Minister does need to answer the questions about how much this botched robodebt scheme is going to cost Australians in reality. It's now been suggested that the true value of all the debt notices unlawfully issued under this scheme will exceed $1 billion, not the $720 million the government promised last month it would repay to the 373,000 welfare recipients that received the unlawful demands for money. Since 2015, a total of $2.1 billion is estimated to have been raised through the robodebt program. So what about those gaps between what the government says it will repay, what we now learn it will probably end up repaying and how much it's actually raked in under this unlawful scheme? What exactly does the government consider as lawful and unlawful debts, and how is it deciding this? The government won't answer any of these questions.

Let's make it clear what is happening here. The government hounded and harassed Australians for debts that they had not lawfully incurred, and they will now repay some of the money they gouged from people. They will spend hundreds of millions of dollars on this exercise. I'm not talking about even the potential fees—the legal fees and damages payments that may arise from ongoing legal action against robodebt. I'm also not adding onto this what the government has paid out to the debt collection firms for hounding and harassing Australians into paying these false debts. The previous senator, Senator Stoker, spoke about how these debt collection firms weren't knocking on doors. Well, there are different stories out there from Australians who've got their own way of telling how they were made to repay these debts. It has been a complete fiasco, and the depths of this fiasco have yet to be thoroughly examined. It seems every day there are more and more revelations about the complete and utter disaster of robodebt, and the government knew this. It knew robodebt was wrong. It knew it was disastrous. It knew it was harming vulnerable people and families, yet it kept on trying to shake them down.

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government takes its responsibility in administering the welfare system incredibly seriously. It is a hallmark of Australia's system that we have such a safety net, a $180 billion safety net, there for people when they need it most, whether they're unemployed or maybe have a disability—any circumstance that they find themselves in where they're not able to earn money for themselves at that particular time. So that safety net is absolutely critical, and the integrity of that safety net is also important. This is why the Australian government takes this position very, very seriously. We spend $180 billion to support Australia's social safety net each year.

Recovering overpayment is a fundamental part of our welfare system. If someone has a debt, the government is legally obliged to pursue recovery of that debt. This debt recovery process has been a feature of our welfare system for over 30 years. It's not new. It's not something that just started, as has been put here today. It's something that's been going on for a long time. It's part of the integrity of the system. If someone has been overpaid or if someone was in receipt of a payment that they were maybe not entitled to, it is the legal responsibility of the government to ensure that debt is recovered.

The Australian taxpayer expects us to ensure the integrity of the welfare system. Every year, about a month of a taxpayer's salary goes into funding the welfare system. So the first four to five weeks of every year that taxpayers work is funding the social services, welfare safety net that Australians have come to rely on, which is absolutely critical. So there is an expectation upon this government to ensure the integrity of this system. Australians rightly expect that the government is the resolute custodian of these taxpayers' funds and will work diligently to prevent and recover overpayments. Australians rightly expect the government to be a resolute custodian of taxpayer funds and to work diligently to prevent and recover overpayments.

In November last year, changes were made to the way debts were raised as part of the program, and, from that time, debts were no longer raised wholly or partially by using the averaged ATO income data. Income averaging was a core feature of the income compliance program. Averaging was applied where recipients did not engage to explain actual discrepancies identified between income they had reported to Services Australia and income data from the ATO. On one of the days that the committee had a look into this program, I heard evidence from representatives of Services Australia, who explained the process that had actually taken place. Firstly, a notice was sent to the recipient indicating that there may be a discrepancy between the amount that they received and the amount that Services Australia understood to be what they should have received. It wasn't a debt notice. It was simply a letter that went to people to say that there were discrepancies between the amount that the person received and the amount that we would expect, after averaging and after looking at the data, that the person should have received. There was an invitation for that person to engage with Services Australia to explain and provide other evidence to show that maybe the estimation was wrong. So it wasn't the case that debt notices were just sent out. There was an opportunity for people to speak to a human. Senator Pratt, who spoke earlier, said it was just a computer doing these things. It wasn't. There was an opportunity for people to speak to someone over the telephone or even in person or to go to Centrelink and have a chat about the situation.

The government is remedying this situation. Payments have been made and refunds have been paid to people. We will continue to work through this program to ensure that the integrity of our welfare system is intact, so that we can ensure that taxpayers, who expect us to keep the system intact, are confident that this government is behaving responsibly with the taxes that they pay.

Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's funny, isn't it? We heard an apology today in the House from the Prime Minister—an apology of sorts, I would call it—on this robodebt scheme, but it seems that members opposite didn't quite get the memo, because they don't really seem very sorry. They still seem particularly defiant and particularly proud of what they did under this scheme. There's not even a sprinkle of 'sorry' from senators opposite. Maybe that's because they weren't communicated with in regard to this apology today, but I believe that it's because they aren't apologetic at all. This decision, brought about by court action against the government, is a win for 470,000 vulnerable Australians who will be repaid what was thought to be $721 million but which now looks like it will be upwards of a billion dollars. Talk about economic management from the government! This was a dodgy scheme launched by Scott Morrison when he was Treasurer. Minister Stuart Robert, Minister Ruston and Minister Porter all had a hand in the scheme as well, and they should apologise too.

Robodebt relied on ATO income averaging data to issue debt notices to people who were in a weaker position to defend themselves when they received those letters. It's interesting to hear members opposite talk about someone picking up the phone and calling Centrelink and everything will be fine. If you've ever had to stand in the line at Centrelink or call Centrelink, you will be very aware that this government has put staffing caps into Centrelink and that a lot of labour hire jobs have been used to fill the gaps. The call wait times just keep going up and up. We've heard in estimates over many years that not only did they issue this robodebt scheme but they also made it harder to get help from Centrelink when people needed it.

I want to speak today about the effect this scheme had on North Queensland, because we do know that, in Townsville, debt notices were being issued by this government in the aftermath of the 2019 floods, despite assurances that debt collection was not being pursued.

I want to put on record my thanks and appreciation to the Townsville Community Legal Service, particularly the principal solicitor there, Michael Murray. It was about a year ago that I travelled to Townsville and met with Michael and his team, who were some of the first people to identify debt notices being sent through to Townsville residents in the aftermath of the floods. And maybe it was that issue that really personalised this terrible, terrible scheme for many people in the community. There's something about floods that has a unique impact on people when they're sent a debt notice where the onus of proof has been reversed and they are the ones who have been told that they need to prove that they do not owe a debt, to go and get payslips for the last five years; and go and find information. People in Townsville were being sent these notices even after the floods had destroyed their homes and destroyed their records. How were these people supposed to prove that they didn't owe a debt to the government under those circumstances?

Even when presented with this evidence in this chamber, Minister Ruston continued to deny that debt collection was being enforced in Townsville, that robodebt was taking place in Townsville after the floods. Stuart Robert also claimed that this was a false rumour. Well, this is the same minister who falsely blamed the shutdown of the myGov website on a cyberattack, so we'll take his word with a grain of salt.

I would like to see an apology from the minister for social services and an apology directly to those residents in Townsville who received debt notices under the robodebt scheme in the aftermath of the floods that was denied in this chamber when we knew that it was true, when those residents knew it was true. I also want to see this government do more than give an apology: I want to see them come out and say that they will not introduce legislation to bring back robodebt. That would be a massive slap in the face for hundreds of thousands of people who have already been targeted by this scheme.

Question agreed to.